


Define Dating

by GemmaRose



Series: Hot-Splicing, Rebellions, and Multiverse Shenanigans [41]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Clocks, M/M, Secret Solenoid, Whirl Has A Nice evening
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-01
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:14:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22068361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: All Cyclonus and Tailgate asked was that he be at Swerve's once a stellar cycle without causing a ruckus. It's not his fault if they decide to waste that night at his table.
Relationships: Cyclonus & Tailgate & Whirl (Transformers), Cyclonus/Tailgate (Transformers)
Series: Hot-Splicing, Rebellions, and Multiverse Shenanigans [41]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1524353
Comments: 1
Kudos: 53
Collections: Secret Solenoid '19-'20





	Define Dating

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Wrathematics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wrathematics/gifts).



One night a stellar cycle. Just one, that was all he’d promised Cyclonus. One night at Swerve’s where he _swore_ not to start anything. It was pretty fair, all things considered, but it did leave him with the slight issue of what to _do_ during those nights. He’d not been getting in as many fights lately anyways, Magnus’s threat/promise hanging over his helm was a more effective deterrent than probably anybody had expected, but he still spent about 70% of his time at Swerve’s heckling the others, and sometimes people got mad and got punchy and he got blamed a lot but Magnus liked the self-defense argument, so long as Whirl hadn’t thrown the first punch. Cyclonus and Tailgate, on the other claw... yeah, no, Cyclonus would get pissed and nobody who had to live in the same vicinity as him wanted _that_.

Whirl glanced around the room as casually as he could as he walked into Swerve’s, the bundle in his subspace feeling disproportionately heavy as he picked out a corner table and made for it. The lovebirds weren’t here yet, which meant he could count on at least a little bit of privacy before Tailgate forgot he and Cyclonus were on a date and came over to talk to him. Whirl sat himself so his back faced the room, his frame blocking most of the other mechs here from getting a good view of the table.

It was easy enough to withdraw the kit from his subspace, tools filched from Medical when Velocity wasn’t looking and a placemat he’d swiped from some swanky place Cyclonus dragged him and Tailgate both to a few shore leaves ago, a dish and a chunk of pegboard, a strap with a weak little magnet on it to pick things back up without fumbling them a hundred times, and finally, the clock. It was one of the first he’d made, since coming aboard. Not _the_ first, that one he’d smashed half to scrap, cobbled back together even less functional than it had been the first time, and shoved in the corner behind a crate of parts. He kept meaning to throw it away, but it still sat there, collecting dust.

This one, though, was the third one he’d put together. It didn’t work quite right, none of them did yet, but he was running out of parts to make new ones so fixing up the old it was. And hey, if anyone asked he was just trying to fix something broken. Not like he needed the whole ship trying to pity him.

The case came off easily enough, one upside to his Not Hands was how the wrist joints could do a 360° spin to pull the bigger screws out without a bazillion fumbles of the screwdriver, but the internal wiring presented something of a challenge. It wasn’t quite as frustrating anymore as it had been when he put this one together the first time, though. Kinda felt almost like how Cyclonus had described meditation, though Whirl still thought that calming down by sitting still with your optics off was just about the dumbest thing he’d ever heard.

Manipulating the tools properly with his big chunky claws had been hard as pit, when he started, but by now he was kinda used to it. It made re-seating the mis-set wires an almost fun challenge, instead of an exercise in frustration. He left the casing off when he powered the clock back up, measuring its nanoklicks and smaller measures against his own internal chronometer, the one mod which hadn’t been removed in his empurata or anything following. Still not quite right, but if it wasn’t the wiring then that meant he’d put the casing together improperly, which would explain why the whole line of them was defective, dammit.

He huffed a frustrated ex-vent and shut the clock off again, picking up a smaller screwdriver and gently parting the wires to get at the screws which held their ports in place. It had to be the seating of the crystal, he’d already reassembled this little bastard four times and that was the only thing he hadn’t tried yet. A mis-set of mere microns could throw the whole machine off, and it was hard as scrap to get at once the piece was assembled. “Right little bastard, you are.” he muttered, making a few attempts at seating the tool tip in the screw’s head before one finally landed.

“Well that’s not a very nice thing to call it.”

Whirl startled at Tailgate’s voice coming from just the other side of the table, and only Cyclonus’s quick reflexes saved him from having to go pick up the casing and all its screws from the bar floor. “When did you two get here?” he demanded, his optic flickering and whole helm warming in lieu of having faceplates for the energon to pool in.

“Oh, just a klik ago.” Tailgate beamed, his visor sparkling. “You get so focused working on those, it’s like watching Cyclonus do his sword training thing.”

“Forms.” Cyclonus said gently. “They’re called forms.”

“Yeah, that.” Tailgate nodded. Whirl knew for a fact the little marshmallow had no intention of addressing the matter properly, Cyclonus thought it was cute and Tailgate absolutely knew it.

“Isn’t this supposed to be your date night?” he asked pointedly, looking back down at his clock and biting back a swear. He’d torn some of the wires loose when he startled, now he’d have to set them all over again.

“Since when have you known me to arrange romantic outings for the two of us at _Swerve’s_?” Cyclonus asked, dry as ever as he gestured to himself and Tailgate, and Whirl paused with the screwdriver nestled in his target screw to give the ancient jet a skeptical look.

“Hey, you’re the one who asked me for quiet nights here.” he reminded Cyclonus, glancing at Tailgate as well. “Not my fault you’re wasting ‘em talking to me.”

“Aww, don’t say that.” Tailgate pouted. It was a bizarrely effective pout, considering he had barely more of a face than Whirl did.

“Time spent with you is seldom time that I would call wasted.” Cyclonus said, and Whirl scoffed.

“Whatever.” he looked back at his project and spun his wrist slowly, teasing the screw out of its housing and lifting it to set in its labelled hole in the pegboard. If the lovebirds wanted to hang out in the same booth while he worked, that was none of his business. So long as Tailgate didn’t mess him up again, he wouldn’t chase them off. Company didn’t help him work like it did for some mechs, but it hardly hurt. Especially when it was those two.

**Author's Note:**

> Cyclonus and Whirl are trying to court Whirl subtly. They overestimate his ability to recognise when people like him.
> 
> This was written for an event, but events aren't all I do! If you would like me to write a fic for you, come hit me up on Pillowfort [[Link](http://pillowfort.social/GemmaRose)]


End file.
